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Sunday,March 21, 2004 7
Sports
h Madness for
d parents
annual Back Mountain -
phootout will be held Sun-
h 28 at Dallas Middle
ing at 12 noon.
1 be competition in three-
pting, free throws and
layups for boys and girls age 7-16 in
flights. There will also be a
Hl team shooting competi-
itration and warmup at
tition starts at 12:30 p.m.
gram is sponsored by the
lownship Recreation Com-
Basketb
day, M
School, st#
There Ee
I
; Saturday
hs Junior Football Associa-
old football/cheerleading
on Saturday, March 27
. to 2 p.m. at the Dallas
unicipal Building. Chil-
14 living in Dallas, Dallas
and Franklin Township ar-
eas are weltome to join the Dallas Ju-
nior Mougts in the new Wyoming Val-
ley West {Youth Football Conference.
Bring at tithe of registration a copy of
birth certificate, copy of health insur-
ance and 4 joes photograph of child.
Any questions, call the hotline at
674-5549} |
The D
tion will
Junio football meets
The D ths Junior Football Associa-
tion will héld a monthly board meet-
ing on Suhflay, March 21 at 7 p.m. at
the Dalla Township Municipal Build-
ing, Rt. 309. The public is invited.
DYB
proved players for each grade level
Call 696-1190 or 639-1467 for ticket
informati¢n
UNIONT]
Parsons wins |
bars, 2nd ail-
at state cham-
Vanessa Parsons, a second grader
at Dallas|Elementary School, cap-
tured the state championship on un-
even bard with a score of 9.355 at
the Level4 YMCA Gymnastics State
Champi bhip, held March 13 in
York. Sh dlso placed third on the
balance Bdam and sixth on the
vault. :
Vanessa ddmpeted against members
of 16 oth¢r YMCA teams from
across the state. She finished the
meet with & silver medal in the all-
around cémpetition with a score of
35.6. ! :
Vanessa qlso recently won gold at
the Central Pennsylvania YMCA
Gymnastics League Championship
in Hanovgk where she won the floor
vault and uneven bars and finished
fourth in balance bean. She won the
all-arou title with a score of 35.8.
Vanessa #s'8 years old and a mem-
Jour sports reports by
{
States Roundup
O’Reilly
charges
into title
contest
By DAVE KONOPKI
For The Post
HERSHEY — The Queensmen
outhustled, outdefended, outre-
bounded and, most important,
outscored two-time defending
state champion Scotland School
on March 17 earning a berth in
the PIAA Class A state champi-
onship game with a 64-49 victory
in the Eastern Regional Final at
Hersheypark Arena.
~ Sophomore center Josh
Aciukewicz led O'Reilly with a
game-high 24 points. Senior
guard Matt Flanagan added 17
and the Queensmen’s defense
forced Scotland into 26
turnovers.
District 2 champion O'Reilly
(29-4) played Sewickley Academy
(26-4) Friday at the Giant Center
in Hershey for the state title. Re-
sults were not available in time
for this issue. Sewickley, of subur-
ban Pittsburgh, advanced with a
45-36 victory against Johnson-
burg in the West Regional Final.
Simply put, the Queensmen
were the much better team
Wednesday. And Scotland head
coach Randy Young knew it.
“They played very well and we
didn’t,” said the first-year Cadet
head coach. “We were a step
slower than them all night. They
got all of the loose balls and they
were in the game mentally much
better than us. I was very im-
FOR THE POST/PETE G. WILCOX
Bishop O’Reilly’s Tim Crossin drove upcourt with Scotland’s John Howie in pursuit during Wednesday's Boys
PIAA Class A semifinal in Hershey.
pressed with them.”
The Cadets committed 15
See O'REILLY, pg 9
Byron wins
top honors
in swimming
By STEVE SEMBRAT
For The Post
UNIVERSITY PARK — It takes a
lot to make Bishop Hoban junior Car-
oline Byron cry tears of joy.
She stayed rather calm March 13
when she captured her second gold
medal at the PIAA Class 2A Swim-
ming Championships, taking first in
the 100-yard freestyle.
When she was named the Out-
standing Swimmer of the meet,
though, that’s when the tears started
to flow.
“It hit me all at once, how hard our
team has worked to get here,” Byron
said. “It’s an incredible sense of ac-
complishment to know everybody on
the team did their best, and the
whole year you had everybody sup-
porting you. It’s a feeling you can’t de-
scribe. You hope that everybody can
experience it.”
Byron is the first female swimmer
from District 2 to be named the Out-
standing Swimmer at a PIAA meet.
Three boys previously have earned
the honor, which is determined by
the power-points system of the Na-
tional Interscholastic Swim Coaches
Association.
“She is just a wonderful athlete that
doesn’t come around often in a
coach’s career,” Hoban coach Mara
Pawlenok said of Byron. “She handled
the pressure very well. She was not
nervous. She was very laid-back.”
Byron has that demeanor even
when she is making history. On
March 12 she became the first Hoban
girls swimmer to win gold in an indi-
vidual event at states when she won
the 50 freestyle. She won another that
Saturday, and is believed to be the
only area female swimmer to win two
See BYRON, pg 9
Eby is proud of comeback from brink
(CHAMPIONS |;
FOR THE POST/JACOB KEPLER
Alaric Eby performed before judges at the PIAA Sate Diving Champi-
onships, where he finished foruth.
J Overcomes setback
from phantom brush
with diving board
Staff reports
UNIVERSITY PARK — Dallas
sophomore Alaric Eby doesn’t dwell
on what might have been at the
PIAA Class 2A Diving Champi-
onships.
Instead, he takes pride in his abil-
ity to bounce back from a disastrous
break that jeopardized his chance to
come away with a medal, which was
his goal going into the competition.
“I just tried to forget about it, and
move on,” he said. Eby said in the
past he had been unable to recover
from a bad dive, but this time was
different.
Eby led early in the meet, held at
the McCoy Natatorium on Penn
State’s main campus, and was sec-
ond going into the fifth and final
dive of the preliminary round. He
plummeted to eighth after the refer-
ee ruled he hit the board, meaning
he could get no higher than a 2 out
of a possible 10 from any of the
judges.
The dive was a back 1 1/2 somer-
sault, carrying a 2.3 degree of diffi-
culty — not the hardest dive, Eby
said, but definitely not easy, and
one he usually hits.
He put the questionable call be-
hind him masterfully, and surged to
a fourth-place medal with 369.20
points.
“He did a phenomenal job of get-
ting back into the game,” said Dal-
las diving coach Kim Perez. “That
was a great comeback.”
There are no appeals, so Perez
turned her attention to helping Eby
refocus during a break, when the
field was cut to 16 divers. Eby hit
his next dive, and was narrowly in
fourth after semifinals, when the
See EBY, pg 9